e freely beyond ideological structures. Their improvisational paintings were created from their feelings and images that resided in the human psyche.In the 1950s art critic Harold Rosenberg described the model action painter as an artist who transformed his canvas into a modern day arena where the struggle between man and material might unfold. Action Painting, was coined in his 1952 essay The American Action Painters, in which he claimed: At a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one American painter after another as an arena in which to act-rather than a space in which to reproduce, redesign, analyze, or express an object, actual or imagined. What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event (Stokstad, p.1114).The drips and splatters that characterize action painting reveal the artists process of creation, which in Rosenbergs view was as important as the finished product. Pollocks style of painting was different from other action painters because he placed his large canvases on the floor rather that working from an easel. I enjoy working on a large canvas. I feel more at home, more at ease, in a big area. Having the canvas on the floor I feel nearer, more a part of the painting. This way I can walk around it, work from all four sides and be in the painting, similar to the Indian sand painters of the West. Sometimes I use a brush but often prefer using a stick. Sometimes I pour the paint straight out of the can. I like to use a dripping fluid paint. I also use sand, broken glass, pebbles, string, nails, or other foreign matter. A method of painting is a natural growth out of a need. I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement. When I am painting I have a gen...
